PJ Harvey's White Chalk is my new favorite album. Every single song is a small sigh of a revelation. I cannot stop listening, and at under 34 minutes long, it never feels like enough. It reminds me of the best stuff from Cat Power, Bat for Lashes etc. but a near-totally-different species.

At times, this album is devastatingly haunting. Very little music can attain a true palpable feeling of distress, mourning and literal haunting.

There was one bad thing about this PJ Harvey concert and that is that it had to end at some point. Seriously, say what you want, but I nearly had to cry when she played the first notes of "When Under Ether" / "The Piano" / "The Desperate Kingdom of Love". She played several modified versions of her songs (e.g. "Down By the Water" with the auto-harp), all of them were equally good or even better. She did all the songs on her own and the atmosphere was intense and intimate...the best thing that could possibly happen. …

When you put a furious banshee tormented with passion and desire into black Victorian clothes all surrounded by tiny bulbs lit with starlight on a wide stage... and when she sits at an upright piano decorated with owls, cactus and deers figurines, playing tunes full of lonely whispers and helpless cries, well... you just KNOW you're going to experience something extreme. And when I say "extreme", I mean that feeling of being transfixed on the chair by an outpour of emotion so intense it could shatter your own soul in a million shards of glass. It's something you can get in rare occasions, if you're among the lucky ones.

PJ Harvey's concert in Rome Sunday night was right one of those. She reached the stage smiling beautifully, with beaming eyes, nodding sweetly to us, the adoring audience. But soon enough she was the doomed character with her evil love confession that plays all through To Bring You My Love's album. …

01. How did you get into #31 (Yeah Yeah Yeahs)?Well, I remember seeing one of their videos when I was a wee one just starting to like music and, back then, they were too CRAZYYY for my tastes. Eventually, when I was sucked into a new world of music, I checked them out and love love loved them.

02. What was the first song you ever heard by #22 (Tyler Bates)?El oh el - the 300 soundtrack. It's so long that if I just listen to it once it becomes one my top listens.

03. What's your favorite lyric by #41 ()?I don't have a 41. :[

04. What is your favourite album by #49 ()?I don't have a 49 either. :[ :[

I find it hard to pick ten albums and say they were better than all of the hundreds of albums that were released this year. For the most part, I didn't really find 2007 to be a very exciting music year, save for the ten albums that I've listed below. Instead of listing from best album on down, I've decided to list according to how frequently throughout the year I actually listed to the albums; a rough estimate but fair to each of the artists as they all contributed to this year in music in significant ways.

Ten Selected Albums of 2007

1. Kala - M.I.A.This album did something that a lot of releases failed to do for me this year: it suprized me. I did not expect this from Maya. Kala is darker than Arular which is interesting considering the album is a lot more feminine as it is named for her mother, but maybe that's what suprised me about this album; it's strength, that tinge of darkness, and a concern for third world peoples who are trying to make it day to day. …